Month: January 2019

There’s been a lot of talk over the years of how taxpayer money is going into university research and development, and how the results of all that information isn’t available and is hidden from the public. This means on turnovers and businesses can’t use it without paying an extra fee or entering into some sort of a licensing agreement with that University. The University of course recycles that money and put it towards more research, which is probably a good thing, but the money they take in on these licensing fees they should realize really belongs to the American taxpayer.

Of course, I have another rather large beef with academic transfer technology and that is that most of the research and development and innovation they create is being developed by entrepreneurs in other nations, not here in the United States. In fact, there are so many industrial espionage spies on our college campuses that many times, even as this information is kept secret from American companies, or they are unable to take the risks to implement it or use it, foreign spies are the first benefactors to all of this. Worse, is when our universities and our research graduate students attend conferences around the world and spill the beans to get notoriety for their work as they publish their papers.

Many of these papers and all of this research information still is not readily available to the American taxpayer who paid for it. This has been a long and arduous debate, and although things have changed a little bit, we have yet another problem. You see, there are so many rules and regulations for business folks in the US that it’s hard to take that information and build it into a viable business anyway. Whereas, our counterparts in other nations get the information for free by stealing it, and their government funds the startup of new enterprises using that knowledge. Again knowledge we paid for. There is a very good research paper on this topic I’d like you to read;

“Advancing University Innovation: More Must Be Expected-More Must Be Done,” by John E. Tyler III which rightfully stated;

“Far too much otherwise usable university research fails to find its way to advanced stages of research, commercial products, or other uses. Given the fundamental nature of much university research, a certain amount of this research will appropriately reach its potential with publication and classroom instruction,” and “Unfortunately, exploitation of university innovations does not seem to be what it could be and is significantly below its potential for evolving to later stages of research, advancing human welfare, and spurring economic growth.”

Wow, has a better statement ever been made about our R&D in academia? Something needs to change, the system isn’t right, and our research universities are asking for more and more money each year, and they are making great new discoveries, but it is not filtering into the private sector as it should. Nevertheless all this information is being used by foreign companies and foreign governments to compete against our own companies with these revolutionary innovative disruptive technologies. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.